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LIGHT IN DARKNESS : 



»jS A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED IN THE 



Reformed Dutch Church, 

STAPLETON, S. I., 

ON THANKSGIVING DAY, 

November 27, 1862, 



THOMAS H. SKINNER, Jr. 



GAZETTE PRINT, STAPLETON, S. I. 

186 2. 

TT1T1 ^ T ^ T7Trn ~ rrn J 






STAPLETON, Dec. 1, 1862. 
Rev. Thos. H. Skihnee, Je. : 

Dear Sir: The undersigned listened to your Thanksgiving Discourse with 
pleasure and profit, and are persuaded that the truths which it sets forth should be 
put into a permanent form and receive wider circulation. Nothing is more important 
than that the minds and hearts of men should be established in the truth of God's 
Word in its bearing upon the tremendous crisis through which our nation is now 
passing : we therefore earnestly request that you will furnish a copy of said discourse 

for publication. 

Yours respectfully, 

J. H. SINCLAIR, T. C. MOFFAT, 

JOHN D. D1X, JOHN BONNEB. 

F.. A. LUDLOW, F. A. LANE, 

Win. SHAW, R. L. ALLEN. 



Stapleton, Dec. 3, 1862. 

Messrs. T. C. Moffat, J. Bonner, and others : 

Gentlemen : I comply with your request for a copy of the discourse to 

which you refer. 

Sincerely yours, 

THOS. H. SKINNER, JR. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 



Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, 
and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. — Vs. lxxi. 20. 

Under the pressure of a most terrible and portentous 
.judgment, the Chief Magistrate of the Commonwealth has 
appointed a Day of Thanksgiving- to the Most High. The 
appointment is not unseasonable. Though dark and dense 
clouds are hovering over us, yet they are clouds in day- 
time ; the light of Divine Love is shining through them. 
But were it otherwise, why should we not lift up our hearts 
in unfeigned gratitude for numberless blessings, temporal 
and spiritual, which have been descending upon us everv 
day, hour, and moment during the year ? It is comely in 
Christians in everything to give thanks. 

We do well, however, to mingle fear with our praise ; to 
rejoice with trembling to-day. The country of which this 
State is a component part, is engaged in one of the direst 
and most disastrous wars known in human history. The 
existence of a nation of thirty millions of the most free, 
enterprising, and energetic people on the globe, is imperiled. 
Our future, which has been looming out so vastly before 
the world's prospective eye, is at this moment seriously, 
awfully, at stake. The question of the improbability, if not 
the impossibility, of a happy issue, agitates profoundly the 
hearts of not a few : all of all parties are pondering with 
intensest interest the tendency and results of the colossal 
struggle. 

I propose to offer a few thoughts adapted to inspire hope. 
Perhaps I may be too sanguine. I shall endeavor not to 
forget this. I shall at least study moderation, and hope to 






LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

be kept from uttering any other words than those of sober- 
ness and truth. 

Men occupy different positions in surveying the unsearch- 
able movements of Divine Providence. Many fail altogether 
to discover a Providence in them. In their study of second 
causes, the first great Cause is excluded or ignored. In 
such an instance as that now presented by our own coun- 
try, they discern the plans, purposes, and motives of men : 
the marshaling, movements, and conflicts of armies and 
fleets ; the cabals, intrigues, quarrels, and jealousies among 
officials in the state, in the army, in the navy ; the surg- 
ings to and fro of the waves of political strife ; the fer- 
mentation of social elements and interests ; the wise or the 
mistaken policies and measures of legislators and com- 
manders ; the relations of the war to foreign powers ; the 
resources, energy, and despotic union of the South ;— these 
and such like things are more or less clearly before them, 
and their conclusions are derived from such balancings and 
adjustments of the various matters as they may make. 

How few embrace in their estimate those philosophical, 
moral, and religious principles that underlie, quicken, and 
control the material and political forces which play upon 
the surface of the struggle ! 

How few rise above the storm that rages so fiercely 
about them, and judge of the present in the calm and steady 
light of the past, discerning those secret and imponderable 
agencies that attach to race, geographical surroundings, 
historic associations, national training ! How few see the 
comparative unimportance of local and transient influences 
which, though at first glance they seem to be bearing all 
before them, speedily yield before the silent operation of 
broader and deeper principles ! 

How few regard the presence and working of superhuman 
creatures in this mysterious darkness of our national sky ! 
On the one hand, celestial principalities and powers, God's 
invisible messengers of mercy and of might ; and on the 
other, malign spirits of various orders, who tempt and 
seduce men to evil, and then guide them in it. Great 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 3 

crimes are, in their inception, diabolic before they are 
human. The supreme iniquity, the betrayal of the Son of 
G-od, is directly and carefully traced in Scripture to Satan 
as its source : " The devil having put it into the heart of 
Judas, Simon's son, to betray him." Lest the better nature 
of Judas should revolt at the thought of the horrid treach- 
ery, and disappoint the invisible instigator, therefore " en- 
tered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot." The traitor 
became possessed of the devil. The atrocities of Nero's 
persecution are likewise represented as the result of the in- 
spiration and management of this same arch enemy of Grod 
and man. " Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into 
prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation." 
Among all secondary agencies in this unparalleled rebellion, 
it is~not to be doubted that here we have the first. 

More especially, how few, in their estimate of this mighty 
political agitation, consider the existence, divinity, and re- 
lations of the Church of Christ, which, whether we apply 
it or not, is the real key to the mystery — the solver of the 
awful problem. Doubt it not, my hearers, the issue and 
the sequel of His shaking in our land will be determined 
by its bearing on the interests of the Church. You know 
on whose shoulder rests the government of the nations. 
How few take note of His immediate and everywhere present 
agency — an agency supreme and almighty over all agen- 
cies, directing and shaping all the elements of the strife, 
and the destinies of the continent, for His own glory ! How 
few believe that the minds and hearts of all men are in His 
hand, as clay in the hands of the potter ; that at His plea- 
sure He imparts to rulers, legislators, and commanders a 
spirit of counsel and wisdom and of a sound mind, or sends 
upon them an evil spirit of delusion and folly ! How 
weak, alas ! the faith of our people in an absolute, univer- 
sal, irresistible, and glorious Providence ! How blind are 
they to the fact that 

" There 's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them as we may," 

and that this divinity is no other than the great Head of 



4 LIGHT IN DARKNESS 

the Church ! The way of nations, as well as of indivi- 
duals, is not in themselves. The Lord Jesus direeteth their 
steps. He ruleth by his power for ever. Let not the 
rebellious peoples exalt themselves. Their diplomacies, 
their councils, their armies, their navies, their commanders, 
are under His command. Of Him, and to Him, and 
through Him, are all things. 

No one, my dear hearers, can begin to think rightly of 
this gigantic rebellion, or forecast its future, who does not 
follow Bible teaching in regard to it. "I will destroy the 
wisdom of the wise." In Grod's light only can we see light ; 
and we shall see light taking our stand-point there. Though 
thoughtful believers dimly see Him who, even to faith, 
covereth Himself with clouds and darkness, yet by Biblical 
illumination they can often catch glimpses of the Divine 
mind, and discover some outlines of His scheme of eternal 
providence, the principles and ends of His administration, 
the means and instruments and secret causes by which, for 
His own glory, He governs and controls all beings and 
events. " Thy testimonies are my counselors." 

If I was a Millenarian (as the word is technically used) 
I should be almost in despair of my country. All the 
pillars of this splendid fabric of human liberty would 
appear prostrate in my visions of the future ; its foundations 
would seem to be heaving out of their place, while its 
benignant Deity would be changed into an avenging 
Judge. I could only see the hand of G-od dashing us to 
pieces as a potter's vessel, dividing the nation not simply 
into two bitterly hostile parts, but into ten, twenty, or 
more, making each a prey to other nations, sowing the 
seeds of new European convulsions — so intensifying the 
wickedness of mankind and fitting them for sudden and 
overwhelming destruction by Omnipotent Judgment. I 
should anticipate the speedy personal return of Christ, and 
the establishment of His Kingdom on the wreck of the 
nations, tribes, and families of the earth. The events of 
the past and present years, the rumbling of the thunder of 
Divine Power all round the world's horizon, would betoken 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 5 

ruin, desolation, and woe as the harbingers of the coming 
of the Son of Man. I should see the Church diminishing, 
her power weakening, her existence menaced, her faith 
well-nigh extinguished, and a small remnant saved only by 
God's " cutting short" His work of judgment. 

But on no such scheme can I interpret the Bible. It is 
most manifest on the very face of Scripture, that (rod's 
spiritual kingdom on the earth is one which, beginning in 
obscurity and on a very limited scale, is to increase, and go 
on increasing, by a gradual, thorough, widespreading growth. 
The world of mankind is not to advance in wickedness till 
it calls for a sudden and overwhelming visitation of Divine 
Wrath ; but in one respect at least it is to decrease in 
wickedness — that is to say, it is to be more and more 
encroached upon by the Kingdom of Heaven until that 
kingdom comprehends it all. Severe judgments, local 
exhibitions of the Divine displeasure, are doubtless to 
take place — kingdoms and governments to be convulsed and 
overthrown, and perhaps new empires to arise ; but be the 
changes what they may, they make way for something 
better. The principles of the Orospel in conflict with man's 
depravity, no doubt will result, as they have done, in wars, 
famines, pestilences, in distress of nations with perplexity, 
fulfilling the word of Christ, " I came not to send peace on 
the earth, but a sword." But these things will only clear 
the moral atmosphere, and serve to consolidate and extend the 
kingdom of Christ. What other meaning can be given to 
Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the stone cut out of the moun- 
tain, which srrote the image and became a great mountain 
and filled the whole earth ? What else, too, is the teaching 
of the parable of the leaven put in three measures of meal, 
and working till the whole was leavened ; and of that other 
like parable of the mustard-seed, which, though the least of 
all seeds, grows to be the greatest among herbs, and be- 
cometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge 
in the branches thereof? The world is to be converted ; 
the fullness of the Grentiles is to come in ; all Israel are to 
be saved. The Church, through much tribulation and great 



6 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

sacrifice, is to take possession of the ends of the earth and 
all the isles of the sea ; the principles of the Gospel are to 
penetrate and permeate and completely change human life. 
Zion is to lengthen her cords and to strengthen her stakes. 
Kings shall be her nursing fathers and their queens her 
nursing mothers. The kings of Tarshish and of the Isles 
shall bring presents, the kings of Sheba and Seba shall 
offer gifts ; yea, all kings shall bow down before her, all 
nations shall serve her, and the earth shall be full of the 
knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. 
The commands, promises, and prophecies of the Bible, the 
prayers and hopes and labors of Christians, all regard this 
as the grand consummation of the purpose of Christianity. 
And whatever may be the wars, famines, pestilences, earth- 
quakes ; whatever the convulsions and changes in dynasties, 
thrones, states, and nations ; whatever the judgments of God 
upon the beast and the false prophet, these things, so far 
from restricting the influence and growth of the Church, 
only settle deeper its foundations and enlarge its boundaries. 
To this judgment history conforms. The world, on the 
whole, has grown better, not worse, under the influence of 
the severity and goodness of God. " Say not concerning 
the former times that they were better than these." No 
student of history can fail to see, during the past eighteen 
centuries, the real progress of mankind in civilization, in 
art, in science ; in the amelioration of the civil and social 
condition of the masses ; in the acknowledgment of human 
rights and performance of human duties ; in virtue, morality, 
religion, and piety ; in the establishment and diffusion of 
the eternal principles of righteousness. Vast reforms and 
renovations are yet required, and the progress of the right 
and the holy is slow, and against stupendous obstacles in 
the organization of states and communities and in each and 
every individual human heart, but the fact of signal and 
most hopeful progress is palpable on the face of modern 
history. 

Along with the just interpretation of Scripture, the in- 
terpretation of Providence, so far as we can read this 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 7 

solemn book, inspires hope for our country from the course 
and upshot of this war. If we regard the outstretchings of 
the Divine arm over nations and individuals as having 
primary reference to their sins, if this is our habit of thought 
concerning the providential judgments of Grod, the state of 
our minds may well be one of alarm and terror. Hope will 
scarcely be able to find anchor ground. Instead of working 
together with God for the fulfillment of His holy purposes, 
we shall but seek to hide ourselves till the fury of Divine 
vengeance be overpast. The conviction of sin against the 
Most High will exclude thoughts of His mercy, because it 
is impossible to prescribe the limits of Eternal Justice against 
human transgression. It is not judgment, with the sense 
of fear which it awakens, that is most likely to lead to re- 
pentance and a better life, but a persuasion of the Divine 
goodness with its consequent sense of admiration, gratitude, 
and hope. It is when we regard Providential movements, 
which inflict widespread desolation and woe, as means in 
(rod's hand of fulfilling his eternal counsels of wisdom and 
of love ; it is when we regard them as having other ends 
than the expression of the Divine displeasure toward suffer- 
ing individuals or communities — ends of culture, of discipline, 
of preparation for future service ; manifestations of Divine 
power and wisdom, full of blessed and far-reaching signifi- 
cance — then it is that we lift up our heads in hope, and sub- 
missively bear whatever inflictions the Divine glory may 
require. You cannot but see, if you read the Bible aright, 
that the uses of Divine judgments are very manifold. 
Sometimes they are direct punishments of sin. Sometimes 
they have no such intent, at least on a portion of the suffer- 
ers. While every judgment ought to lead to heart-searching 
and humiliation of soul and watchfulness against sin, it 
would be a great mistake to interpret all the adversities of 
life as visitations for sin. In the case of an earthquake, a 
shipwreck, a pestilence, or a flood, the good and the bad are 
alike overwhelmed. In the case of the man born blind, our 
Lord was asked, " Who did sin, this man or his parents, 
that he was born blind ?" And he replied, " Neither hath 



8 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God 
should be manifest in him." And He taught the same 
lesson in connection with the account of the resurrection of 
Lazarus, " This sickness is not unto death, but for the 
glory of G-od, that the Son of God might be glorified 
thereby." Job, Joseph, and Daniel were the very best men 
on the earth in their days, and like Christ they suffered, not 
for themselves, but for the good of others. The overthrow 
of the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Grecian empires, 
though in punishment for their sins, had for its main end a 
preparation for the advent and kingdom of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The shaking and removing of these nations 
opened the portals of Heaven that the Redeemer of the 
world might come forth. For this purpose did God raise 
them up and then cast them down. It is not given us, 
except so far as the Scripture may guide, to trace the 
mysterious connection between the events of an era and the 
eternal counsels of Providence. Why this or that event 
occurred, may not find its just exposition for hundreds or 
thousands of years. God moves in mystery : time to Him 
is the same, whether a day or a thousand years. He is His 
own interpreter. ( And the simple question is, whether, in 
order to estimate aright the Divine dealings with men, we 
shall stand amid the judgments and terrors of God and look 
up, or ascend above on the wings of faith, and standing by 
the side of the Invisible Ruler, look down upon them ? 
Shall we estimate them by sight, or by faith ; by reason, or 
by the Word of God ? 

This war has a deep and glorious meaning. God has 
ordered it for wise and good purposes, which it will sub- 
serve as surely as God reigns. Let us hot be overwise in 
attempting to determine that meaning. How far it is 
retributive in its aspect, both on the North and the South, 
we cannot know. That it ought to lead us to forsake all 
sin and fulfill all righteousness, is the dictate alike of natu- 
ral piety and the Bible. " When the host goeth forth 
against their enemies, then keep thee from every wicked 
thing ; for the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 9 

camp to deliver thee and to give up thine enemies before 
thee ; therefore shall thy camp be holy ; that He see no 
unclean thing in thee and turn away from thee." 

That it imports the destruction of the nation would be a 
bold assertion, without Scriptural warrant, the suggestion 
of blind fear and distrust of Grod. I cannot but think that 
the United States had more occasion to tremble in the time 
of their unsurpassed prosperity, than they now have in the 
season of their sore adversity. Whom the Lord loveth, He 
chasteneth. The language of the prophet Jeremiah is very 
striking : " Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he 
hath settled upon his lees, and hath not been emptied from 
vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity ; there- 
fore his scent remained in him and his taste is not changed. 
* * * Behold, the calamity of Moab is near to come, and 
his affliction hasteth fast." The country is safer to-day 
than when apparently less imperiled by its insidious 
enemies. Truth and Justice make headway only by con- 
flict. The world resists the true principles of its own prog- 
ress. Hence the declaration of Christ already referred to, 
" I came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword." His 
battle-cry is, " Prepare war ; wake up the mighty men ; 
let all the men of war draw near ; let them come up ; beat 
your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into 
spears ; let the weak say, I am strong ;" and His counsel to 
all them that love Him, amid wars, famines, pestilence, and 
earthquakes, is, " See that ye be not troubled." Therefore 
will not we fear though the earth be removed and the 
mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. 

Bearing in mind the principles now stated, let us see 
whether we may not reasonably, nay, whether we ought 
not as a matter of duty to indulge hopeful anticipations for 
our national future. 

1. I have already remarked that the world and all nations 
in it exist and are ruled and governed by Grod in the inter- 
est of and for the advancement of His Church, His king- 
dom on the earth. This is the secret of all human history, 
the clew to the vast labyrinth of human life. The advant- 

6 



10 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

age of the Church, its strength and growth, its gradual 
possession of power and influence in the world's affairs, and 
eventual assumption of universal dominion and control, are 
the objects to which all things national, civil, social, ma- 
terial, scientific, and political are made subservient. Em- 
pires with all their diversified interests and relations rise, 
endure, and pass away wholly for the good of the Church. 
If it could be shown that these United States were opposed 
to the Church's advantage and progress, we would at once 
interpret this war as significant of their speedy dissolution. 
But no truth in the history of Divine Providence ever de- 
clared itself more distinctly than this, that under the pro- 
tecting favor of the Constitution and organized life of this 
nation, the Church of Christ has never in all time had so 
fair an opportunity, such untrammeled liberty, such scope 
and power to put forth its inborn and sacred energies. 
Allow me to quote, as pertinent to our circumstances, a 
few lines from a discourse by Dr. John Owen, delivered 
before the Parliament of England a little more than two 
hundred years ago. He states as one of the reasons for the 
shaking and convulsions, in Divine Providence, of the king- 
doms of the earth, " that Grod by His own wisdom may 
frame such a power as may best conduce to the carrying 
on of His own kingdom among men," and remarks, " For 
the present, the government of the nations (as many of 
them as are concerned therein) is purely framed for the 
interest of Anti-Christ. No kind of government in Europe, 
or line of governors, so ancient but that the Papacy is as old 
as they, and had a great influence into their constitutions 
or establishment, to provide that it might be for its own in- 
terest. I believe that it will be found a difficult task to 
name any of the kingdoms of Europe (excepting only that 
remotest northward) in the setting up and establishment 
whereof the Pope hath not expressly bargained for his own 
interest, and provided that should have the chiefest place in 
all the oaths and bonds that were between princes and peo- 
ple." Works, vol. 8, pp. 264-5. Does it not seem as if 
ours was the nation the celebrated Puritan unconsciously 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 11 

foreshadowed ? Think of the nearly forty thousand 
churches, with their three million five hundred thousand 
officers and members, that have here sprung into existence. 
Think of the Christian and philanthropic institutions they 
have founded and cherished, pervading the whole land with 
their benign influence, and reaching forth to the^very ends 
of the earth. Think of the immense power they exert upon 
the laws, institutions, customs, maxims, habits of the 
country. We can hardly imagine anything more fatal to 
the Church's power than the failure of the nation to preserve 
its being and its future. It surpasses human ingenuity to 
discover any permanent blessing to the Church of Christ in 
the destruction of this fabric of government ; and it defies 
human thought to compass the boundless good that must 
come to mankind under it. Why, then, should we con- 
clude that this war will have any other effect than that of 
establishing more firmly than ever the national union and 
power of this country ? 

The objection may possibly suggest itself to some minds 
that Grod has a Church in the South, and that the argu- 
ment which is good for the nation is in a measure, if not 
equally so, for the States now in rebellion. In reply to this, 
it is enough to name only a single aspect of the case. A 
corrupted, apostate Church is the most odious object ever 
presented to the eye of God. He can bear sin in a nation 
which He cannot bear in a Church. His jealousy will burn 
like fire when His Church prostitutes its supernatural pre- 
rogatives and virtue to the propagation of organized and 
atrocious evils. Never let it be, never can it be, forgotten 
that the avowed object of this fearful war on the part of 
the South is the preservation, perpetuation, and extension 
of slavery ; an object, as it seems to us, simply demonic. 
And no element of strength exists in the rebellious States 
comparable with that of the Christian Church. And she, 
including her ministry and membership, has consecrated 
her whole power of learning, of interpretation, of preaching, 
and of example, with a terrible unanimity, to the support 
of this insurrection against the union, laws, and liberties 



12 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

of the nation. And shall not God visit her for these things ? 
What hope is there in God for the South as a people, when 
the Church stands in the forefront of the conflict and 
leads on the States in their madness and sin ? The arch 
traitors themselves seem absolved from their crime, when 
the sacramental host sanctify and support them in it. The 
crime is transferred from the people to the Church, which, 
when left of God, becomes the weakest, blindest, most 
reckless guide creatures ever trusted. The spectacle of 
defection in the Southern Church, is the most painful and 
appalling that has been exhibited during this war, and no 
one thing is so prophetic of extremest disaster to the South, 
as the course of each and every denomination of professing 
Christians in this rebellion. 

2. I return to the argument, and remark, secondly : The 
Church of God, having this supreme interest in the perpe- 
tuity of the nation, does it not follow that the wickedness 
of the people will not determine its destiny, so long as the 
Church is enshrined in its bosom ? The sins of individuals 
and of officials and their subordinates are certainly great 
beyond all computation ; and if God should be strict to 
mark our iniquities, and should deal with us as we deserve, 
we should be swept away with the besom of destruction. 
Our national sins have been and are varied, willful, and in- 
excusable. It is madness to cloak them or to refuse to 
acknowledge them. But we must remember that God 
does not look for godliness except among the godly. Only 
real Christians can do anything to please Him. None others 
can pray to, honor, love, or serve Him. We must not judge 
the world as we do the Church. God regards the two as 
essentially dissimilar and separate, and has complacency 
only in the latter. The unrenewed portions of this nation 
are endured, favored, and made strong for the sake of the 
renewed. These are the salt and the light of the country. 
The appalling wickedness of Sodom was insufficient to 
destroy it, if ten righteous men had been in it. Yea, the 
presence of one such man prevented the fires of heaven 
from consuming it. "I cannot do anything," said God to 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. " 

Lot, " until thou be come thither " (to Zoar). The crimes 
of ages, from the days of righteous Abel to Zacharias. con- 
centrated upon Jerusalem, could not sink it into destruction 
till Christ had removed his Church into the wilderness. No 
language can exaggerate the safety of a nation where (rod 
has a people established, and having a deep and vital con- 
nection with it. 

Moreover, we must be careful how we transfer the Old 
Testament threatenings of God against the Jews to our 
nationality. The two cases are totally distinct. With them 
the Church and the State were one. The two were exactly 
identical. The apostasies of the people, were the apostasies 
of the Church. What one did, the other did. If it had 
been otherwise — if the nation had fallen into idolatry, and 
the Church had preserved her purity and integrity — their 
history would have been vastly different. Threatened 
wrath, therefore, in their case, may not be applied to ours. 
My friends, if the interests of God's Church demand the 
perpetuity of the nation, all the sins of the people, all the 
corruption in high places, all the miserable ambition and 
intrigues of politicians, on the one hand, and all the powers 
of the rebellion, and all the cabinets and crowned heads of 
Europe, on the other, all combined, can do nothing against 
us. They will be managed and overruled by the Great Su- 
preme to strengthen and consolidate this free and vigorous 
nation. The selfishness of the former, and the fury or the 
envy of the latter, will aptly serve God's gracious purposes. 
He has not abandoned nor suspended His plan of mercy, 
which is dependent, not on the righteousness of the Church, 
nor on the wickedness of the people, but is secured and will 
be consummated only for His great name's sake. 

3. The force of these considerations will be enhanced by 
recalling the dispensations of God with the population of 
these States, whereby they became a nation. Here I may 
not enlarge. Let me briefly suggest (a) that, ages ago, 
when the Most High divided to the nations their inherit- 
ance, He selected for us this broad expanse of territory, 
with its peculiar characteristics of climate, soil, mineral 



U LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

treasures, lakes, gulfs, rivers, mountains, and table-lands, 
isolated by vast oceans from the rest of the globe : a new 
world given to a chosen people by the goodness of God in 
the last dispensation of human history, as far removed, in 
the nature of their government and institutions, from foreign 
powers, as these are distant from them in space : for G-od, 
who " hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell 
on all the face of the earth, hath determined the times 
before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." 
(b) The recency of the discovery of the continent, the his- 
tory of its colonization, the seven years' struggle of the 
colonies for independence, and the birth, founding, and 
wondrous growth of the nation. And (c) the character of 
the race appointed to possess and control the immense herit- 
age ; not the Latin, centralizing and strongly local in their 
tendencies, but the Anglo-Saxon, migratory and missionary, 
hardy, energetic, and inventive. The study of these facts 
is, I think, most inspiring for our national continuance and 
progress. I pass them, however, to name, in the fourth 
place : 

4. The advanced and Biblical type of the form of our gov- 
ernment. I regard the Constitution of these United States 
as the greatest boon God has vouchsafed to any nation in 
human history since the Jewish Theocracy. It is more in 
keeping with the original nature and rights of man than 
any constitution, written or unwritten, that .has ever existed. 
Every form of government ordained by God among men is 
ordained on the basis of the supreme selfishness and deprav- 
ity of the human heart. With the progress of the Gospel 
by which that selfishness and depravity are modified and 
restrained, we should naturally expect freer, more advanced 
modes and forms of civil administration and authority. 
Looking at r this country from the stand-point of Eternal 
Providence, there is a sublime grandeur in the rapid gather- 
ing and multiplication of its people under the benignant 
and powerful aigis of its simple, unmatched Constitution. 
With the single exception of the African race, concerning 
whom God is now having such a tremendous controversy 



LIGHT IN DAMNESS. 15 

with the South, for infringing, as against them, the inherent 
principles of this Constitution, and with the North for per- 
mitting such infringement,— with this single case excepted, 
here every man is a man, in the Bible sense of the word. 
Each human being is, by the fundamental law, recognized 
as possessing a worth equal to any human being. ° The 
divine fact that God has made of one blood all men, per- 
meates and leavens the whole document. The lowliest 
American is as sovereign as the loftiest. Loyalty with us 
is not to royalty, but to law. No blood is richer than that 
which flows in the veins of the tradesman or the artisan. 
Except for crime, no legal barriers are erected between man 
and man. Nor blood, nor birth, nor regal gifts of nobility, 
nor landed estate, can create classes and castes here. The 
poor and the rich, the high born and the lowly, meet 
together and are evermore changing places. 

So, too, the rights and privileges of every man, whether 
natural, religious, social, civil, or political, are secured with 
all the force of the organic law of the nation. " Excelsior," 
the motto of our commonwealth, might be written over the 
doorway of every family in the land. None are held down 
by the oppressive hand of legalized power. The highest 
political, judicial, military, naval, literary, and commercial 
honors are freely offered to every citizen. All may aspire 
with hope. No laws of entail and primogeniture, no bills 
of attainder, no hereditary privileges, no rank, in the 
European sensa of these words, are possible. The genius 
of our liberties lavishes with open hands the treasures of 
knowledge — providing a good education for the multiplying 
millions of the population, and establishing freedom of 
speech and freedom of the press, and, thereby, freedom of 
thought. It gives the largest scope to the religious instincts, 
preferences, and labors of the people. It throws wide open 
the channels to wealth and position in life, making integ- 
rity, industry, and merit the conditions of success in any 
sphere. One of its greatest achievements is the oomplete 
emancipation of the people from the hierarchies of Europe. 
The union of Church and State, so fruitful of evils to both, 



16 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

was perhaps a necessity under feudal and old monarchical 
institutions, during the transition of the nations from bar- 
barism to civilization. Here they are completely separated, 
and Religion, divorced from the State, has married Liberty. 
The pathway to civil honors, emoluments, and office does 
not lie through the Church. The pure robes of the Bride 
of Christ are unspotted by contact with worldly pomp and 
power. As I have before observed, Christianity is more 
absolutely free and untrammeled in this country than it 
ever has been since the world began. Mr. Webster has 
truly said, " This nation is founded on principles which never 
did prevail to any considerable extent, either at any other 
time or in any other place." (Works, vol. 3, p. 192.) 

Add, moreover, to all this, that the Constitution itself, as 
a written document, is based on the Bible. I wish the 
statement of this fact had been made on its forefront. The 
omission is unhappy, but of no material moment. Its 
framers were, for the most part, men of high moral and 
Christian character. The seal and signet of its authority 
is the Divine Word. Christianity is its inspiration. The 
Bible is its oath book. The day of the resurrection of 
Christ is its sacred institute, and its engrossment is a beau- 
tiful acknowledgment of the crucified One as our Supreme 
Sovereign and Lord. And all— in the language of its most 
consummate expounder — all proclaim that Christianity, 
general, tolerant Christianity, Christianity independent of 
sects and parties, that Christianity to which the sword and 
the fagot are unknown, — general, tolerant Christianity, is 
the law of the land. 

5. One thought more will complete this rapid sketch. It 
relates to the innocence of the people of the loyal States as 
to the cause and object of the war. The absurd charge of 
lust for empire comes with an ill grace from a people who 
have seized upon the vast domains of Hindostan, owned and 
peopled by one hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants, to 
say nothing of China, South Africa, Australia, and New Zeal- 
and. So far as the war itself is concerned, nothing was fur- 
ther from the thoughts of the North. We neither meant it 



LIGHT IN DARKNI 17 

nor suspected it. It was forced upon us. We had yielded 
everything to the South which we dared to yield — far more 
than we ought to have yielded. From the beginning of the 
government they had had their own way and wishes. Our 
pusillanimity in not resisting them was our chief sin ; not, 
however, so much against them as against God, posterity, 
and humanity. No Northern man imagined the leaders in 
this rebellion capable of such a crime. Many of them 
occupying the chief seats of national trust and power, with 
the solemn oaths of office registered in the Book of God 
against them for the support and defense of the Constitu- 
tion and Government, were secretly conspiring for their 
overthrow. The first-fruits of the conspiracy were perjury, 
robbery, falsehood, and treason ; then followed war, with 
its fearful bloodshed, sickness, sorrow, and desolation. 
Social, civil, commercial, financial disorganization and ruin 
impend — possibly servile insurrection, famine, and pesti- 
lence. The South have plunged into a frightful abyss, and 
they have not yet touched its bottom. Their act was not a 
calmly considered Revolution. It was not a bold and open 
Rebellion. It was Secession — a word which will hereafter 
be regarded as more expressive of all that is mean, cow- 
ardly, and vile than perhaps any word in any language. 
And ail this in the nineteenth century of Christian prog- 
ress, in behalf of the most stupendous organic crime of 
modern times — human chattel slavery. Can it be that a 
righteous God will prosper them to whom belongs the 
guilt of this unparalleled, atrocious, Satanic war ? 

Have we not ground, then, for the hope that God has 
not created this great nation, founded, strengthened, dis- 
ciplined, and biassed it, and embosomed and magnified His 
Church and His Word in it beyond all historic precedent, 
in order now to destroy it, and set up on its ruins a vast 
empire founded on an organized crime and devoted to its 
perpetuity and extension ? How can any one who believes 
in the Supremacy and Providence of God so interpret this 
war ? For, remember that the confident hope we thus 
indulge arises from no estimate of the patriotism, the virtue, 



18 LIGHT FN DARKNESS. 

the wisdom of our rulers, commanders, legislators ; it does 
not repose upon the vastness of our resources, the magni- 
tude of our armies, the number of our vessels of war, the 
tenacity and determination of our people ; nor is it abated 
by the knowledge of the corruption, ambition, weakness, 
divided counsels, or vacillation of men in high places, nor 
by defeats, delays, disasters, fearful losses in our armies. 
But we rest our assurance on the principles and ends of the 
Divine Administration among men, revealed to us in the 
Bible and manifested in the ways and workings of Provi- 
dence. In this light, can we not indeed see light ? We 
got not this land in possession by our own sword, neither 
did our own arm save us ; but Grod's right hand and His 
arm and the light of His countenance, because he had a 
favor unto us ; and thus and only thus shall we retain it. 
So that we cannot but think that this great rebellion is 
to be regarded, primarily, not as a judgment of the Lord 
against us, but as His merciful visitation to save us. What 
else could have rescued us from the degeneracy and moral 
corruption into which the whole nation would soon have 
sunk, under the guidance and inspiration of the slave 
power ? Reason, honor, right, oaths, the instincts of self- 
interest, ballots, were all powerless to arrest the onward and 
downward course of that proud oligarchy, that iron-willed, 
cruel despotism. This war has revealed the despotic nature, 
the virulent spirit, which has been gathering its strength 
during forty years for this rebellion, and has proved itself 
to be the necessary means of the preservation of our Con- 
stitution, Union, and Liberties. Its tendency is to revivify, 
invigorate, and perpetuate them. Its very magnitude is 
full of promise. Such a movement of the Merciful Ruler 
of Nations portends great and benignant results. God, we 
may be sure, will be thorough in the work He has under- 
taken. Now that He has begun, He will not cease till He 
has made an end. The issues will be radical, widespread, 
and permanent. The nation will be born again. And as 
Morality and Religion, rather than armies and navies, Right> 
rattier than might, are the true, almost the only conserva- 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. ™ 

tive and repressive forces— the real balance-wheel of our 
vast system— is it an unreasonable expectation to indulge, 
that God. having baptized the nation in blood, will, for His 
own name's sake, and His Church's sake, baptize it with 
His grace; that having exorcised the insatiate demon 
which was consuming the vitals of the state. He will im- 
part His Holy Spirit to our institutions, and make His 
revived and spreading Church the joy and praise of the 

land ? , 

Ajmd wars and rumors of wars, vast battle-fields and 
terrific carnage, desolation, sorrow, and anguish ; amid the 
deeper conflict of civilizations, social institutions, formative 
principles and ideas, we need not be troubled for the future. 
Many most intricate and perplexing questions are present- 
ing and will hereafter present themselves— questions per- 
taining to the South and to the North, to the white and 
the black races, to the Constitution and laws of the nation 
and of the States. With these, however, we have now 
little concern. God reigns. The war is His war. There 
is one thing now for us to do. and let us do that with our 
might. Never had a people a clearer case of duty. A 
direct command from God could not make it plainer. We 
must prosecute this war to its legitimate, proper conclusion. 
We must conquer, crush, annihilate this rebellion by the 
arm of our military power. Not to do it, is ourselves to 
turn traitors to Gor\ to posterity, to mankind. We may 
not, we dare not succumb before the relentless despotism 
that enchains and magnetizes the revolted States. We 
dare not make peace with the power that betrayed this 
people, and sacrificed on its dark altar the hopes of tens of 
thousands of families. We dare not enter into alliance 
with this Judas of human liberty. We must fight till his 
crime in spectre shape pursues him, and compels him to 
self-destruction; till he goes to his own place; till he 
plunges into the bottomless abyss of shame and everlasting. 

contempt. , 

Sad sympathy for the South we ought to feel; for the 
five millions of degraded, oppressed whites; tor the four 



20 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

millions of slaves ; for the hundreds of thousands of deluded 
deceived, impressed mechanics and laborers ; for the rem- 
nant of loyal slaveholders ; for their posterity ;— but for the 
real traitors and conspirators, the hand of Mercy which 
attempted to arrest that of Justice against them, would be 
palsied. Therefore, as we look upon the enormous military 
and naval preparations of the Government, and see their 
unfaltering and invincible determination to prosecute the 
war, while there is much we could wish otherwise, we 
thank Grod and take courage. 

And Thou, Almighty Ruler and Lord of our land, which 
hast showed us great and sore troubles, oh, quicken us 
again, and bring us up again from the lowest depths of the 
earth ! 



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